


love and choices

by grossferatu



Series: the terror stalking london town [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Banned Together Bingo 2020, Body Horror, Break Up, Disability, Dominance, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/F, F/M, Finger Sucking, Found Family, Hierarchy, Joint Trouble, M/M, Mild Blood, Patriarchal Pseudo-Incestuous Vampires, Patriarchy, Pseudo-Incest, Pulp, Submission, Unintentional Ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24240679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grossferatu/pseuds/grossferatu
Summary: Georgie hasn't seen Melanie in weeks. Every time she tries to visit her at the Archives, she gets stonewalled, so she finds out where Melanie lives now, thinking she's joined some kind of cult that's worse than the Institute.Arriving, she finds someone she thought was dead and learns the truth about what Melanie has become.Featuring sexy monster Tim!
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Melanie King, Elias Bouchard/Tim Stoker, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Melanie King
Series: the terror stalking london town [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749709
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	love and choices

**Author's Note:**

> This is called "slowly working myself up to writing F/F again" but note, this is technically F/F/F/F/M/M/M/M/M, with the majority of the focus being on an F/M/M/M/M/M relationship. There be strange hierarchies afoot.
> 
> This is the first part of a series and my "Patriarchy" submission for Banned Together Bingo 2020!

The house is dark, the door unlocked, the gate unlatched as Georgie pulls it open, ignoring the ornate knocker. The day is bright, though twilight will be soon, and she is hoping that she will catch one of them coming home.

She knows where Melanie has been now, has tailed her here after hours of quiet. She thinks, perhaps, this would be the right place for fear, on this threshold seeking a damsel in a den of monsters.

The foyer is high ceilinged, a staircase curling upwards to the left, a great set of double doors set back and tightly shut. Portraits line walls above bookshelves stocked with a haphazard collection. The labeled bust of a dead Roman watches eyelessly from a high vantage point, the fireplace is cold. There is no light, even inside, except for what flows through the window in the door.

Georgie hears footsteps coming from behind the double doors, up a staircase, perhaps, or just someone walking across the room after standing up. The sound reminds her of a dog’s nails clicking across bare wood, but the gait is bipedal, if uneven, as though one leg was dragging, injured.

The doors are pushed open, scraping along their metal tracks, and Georgie beholds the figure standing there before her.

Nude and nearly hairless except for a shock of tangled dark that falls down its shoulders and crawls down its stomach between its legs, it does not look surprised to see her. It is not beautiful, not with the many teeth that fill its mouth as it smiles, but it is striking, predatory. It is covered in moon-shaped (mouth-sized) scars, dark spots on its otherwise faintly luminescent skin.

It is a good head taller than Georgie, but it crouches when it speaks. “I know who you’re looking for,” it says, and laughs, and the voice is almost familiar.

“Where is she?” Georgie asks, because if it knows who she is it knows it can’t intimidate her, can’t make her afraid.

It laughs again and shrinks in front of her, warping until the nude shape of Timothy Stoker is standing in front of her. It—he smiles, and his teeth are all human sized.

“She’s at work,” he says. He flicks a light switch behind him that Georgie hadn’t noticed, and an old light flickers on in the ceiling. “It’s not your fault you wouldn’t understand.” He doesn’t move like she remembers, one leg stiff at the hip and knee, his joints all bending slightly too far as he moves closer to her. He hasn’t blinked, yet, she realizes, and she wonders if he even needs to.

“She wouldn’t hide from me if someone wasn’t making her,” Georgie says. This is the conviction that has driven her hunt these past weeks. She knows Melanie. She knows how hard she was trying, even with the bullet. Even with everything.

Tim nods, and Georgie almost wishes that he were still in that other form, because then she wouldn’t be watching someone she knew had tried so hard to die human stare at her, unspeaking.

“Choice is… relative, in this family,” he says, finally. “She assumed you would try to kill her. Would you?” His question doesn’t have the weight to it that Jon’s do, but Georgie hates him anyway. She knows—knew—that Melanie would make the right decision, if only Georgie could get to her in time.

“No,” Georgie says. “Of course not.”

“You have to understand,” Tim says. His tone is increasingly conversational. “She’s my little sister, and their niece. Of course, we’re all protective. It’s only natural.”

Great, another cult. “Who’s _we_ ,” she asks, now definitely irritated. She came here for answers, but she didn’t want them from a smiling dead man. She wanted them from Melanie, somewhere where she couldn’t be turned away by Martin, or worse, Jon.

“You don’t know?” Tim asks. He seems genuinely perplexed. “But you found the house.”

“She’s been stalking us, Tim,” a voice calls down from the stairs. “It seems your sister hasn’t learned how to be careful yet.”

Georgie looks up to see Elias and hot, unexpected anger blooms in her throat. He looks as human as ever, and is fully dressed, which makes Tim’s nudity suddenly much odder.

“She’s more responsible than I was when I was newborn,” Tim says. “Barely needs to be _punished_ at all.”

Elias chuckles, and Georgie realizes that this is flirting. He walks the rest of the way down the steps and Tim joins him, letting Elias wrap an arm around his middle. “What have I said about showing yourself to humans?” Elias murmurs.

Tim rolls his eyes. “She doesn’t count,” he says. “I could smell it was her from the moment she walked in.”

Elias digs his nails into one of the scars on Tim’s chest. Tim’s eyes flare a bright, pale green, and his smile melts into euphoria.

“If you’re so desperate to see her, tell Martin you have my permission.” He brings his bloody fingers up to Tim’s mouth. “He might even let you, unlike Jon.” He smiles indulgently as Tim sucks on his fingers, as though he and Georgie are sharing a joke about troublesome children.

“You’re supposed to be in prison,” Georgie says, finally able to _think_ through her rage. “You’re not supposed to be a problem anymore.”

“Yes, well,” Elias says. “My family would never allow that.”

Tim moans, and Georgie rolls her eyes. “The incest roleplay is admittedly offputting but you know I can’t be afraid of—” She gestures to the two of them. “This.”

“I’m not playing,” Elias snaps, and Georgie takes a reactive step back as something flares in his face, as inhuman as the shape Tim had just been wearing. “I allow you enough comforting fictions without you inflicting them on me. I _care_ about my family, and Melanie is my family. Go.”

Georgie might as have disappeared in that moment, as far as the two monsters in front of her are concerned. Their forms are twisting, more slowly than Tim’s had to human, and eventually Elias drags Tim into the room, leaving the double doors open.

Georgie leaves. She feels the urge to snoop around, of course, but that’s less important than finally getting to see Melanie.

This can’t be what she’s like. This can’t be… permanent.

She flicks off the light as she heads out. It’s only polite.

“Why are you letting her near her?” Tim asks. He’s stretched out on the couch, back in his preferred shape, face down in Elias’s lap as his master strokes his hair. “Jon would be upset if she got hurt.”

“I dislike useless self-delusion,” Elias says. “I hope she will choose to ally herself to us—Terminus is a rare patron—but you know how I feel about interference.”

Tim mumbles in vague agreement. “I’ll bring her back something nice. As a consolation,” Tim adds, eventually. “I like talking to humans,” he said. “Can I talk to more humans?” Humans who would actually be frightened, he doesn’t have to add out loud, instead of just annoyed and annoying.

“No, Tim” Elias says. “We have to maintain _some_ standards of self-preservation.”

He lets his attention broaden. He would borrow Melanie’s eyes, he thinks. They would provide a good point of view.

Melanie is at her desk when Georgie rushes into the room. She smells upset, and Melanie only does not stand up because she sees Martin standing in the doorway, watching them.

“You look human,” Georgie says, surprised, and Melanie flinches, wishing she had not hoped for other first words.

“Yes,” Melanie says. “I’m at work.” She doesn’t _eat_ at work, unlike Jon, who has to, or Martin, who’s greedy, or Peter, who’s greedier. She’s… careful, and likes having the separation, the internal division of horror.

It is difficult to feed the Slaughter in an office, and difficult to stay human when she feeds. She’s new at this, and she doesn’t have the ‘advantage’ of near-death to nudge her away from human habits.

“Why have they not been letting me see you, then?” She stares at Melanie, surprised when Melanie stares back. “I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t be scared of you.” She says it like a reassurance, but Martin takes a step into the room.

“I needed space,” Melanie says, which is her polite way of saying she spent a week trying alternately to tear Jon’s throat out and fuck him to death. “Room to breathe. Metaphorically.”

“You know they’re not the only people who would accept you, right? If they’ve told you that, they’re lying, I—”

Melanie sighs. “Shut up, Georgie,” she says.

Georgie staggers. “What?”

“I’m not a _person_.” Melanie has been avoiding this conversation. She doesn’t want to be reassured of the humanity she knows she’s lost. She just wants to take Georgie out for dinner.

“You don’t have to be human to be a per—”

“Georgie!” Melanie stands up finally. She is crying, apparently, which is _awful_ , but she knows why. “Please. Just listen to me.” She hasn’t stopped loving Georgie, even with her affection for her family now always crowding her thoughts.

“You can still leave,” Georgie says. “There’s always a choice.”

The only choice Georgie will accept is one she likes, and so better to show how much of this Melanie cannot choose. Melanie doesn’t answer her, just angrily dries her eyes and looks to Martin.

“Voyeur,” he mouths, not to her, but to Elias. “Melanie,” he says, out loud. “Come here.” Melanie knows that Georgie won’t notice the change in tone in his voice, but she must notice her eyes turn color.

Melanie steps around her and tucks herself under Martin’s arm. She’s not thinking of anything except him, about how tomorrow is a day off for him and Jon and how they’re all going to go hunting together with Tim.

“It’s a hierarchy,” Martin explains, patiently. He’s not nervous—he’s never nervous when it matters, anymore—and his voice is a pleasant buzz to Melanie. “She’s Jon’s, and so I can do what I want with her.”

“And if I kill you?” Georgie asks.

“You can’t,” Martin says. “She won’t let you.”

Melanie can’t really feel fear when she’s like this, and she appreciates it now more than ever. She looks at Georgie and worries at Martin’s shirt sleeve for a moment. “We could feed our patrons together,” Melanie says, finally. “Terminus and Slaughter aren’t so different.”

Georgie shakes her head. “No,” she says. “Absolutely not.” She grimaces, and says, after a moment of hesitation. “I saw Tim. Is that what you’re going to turn into, eventually?”

Melanie can’t help her disappointment, or her anger on behalf of her brother. “Would you rather he be dead?” she asks, half-knowing the answer and asking anyway. The glow has faded from her eyes, Martin too distracted by holding himself back to keep a handle on her. As the former youngest, he has the least practice of all of them, except for Tim.

“I don’t know,” Georgie says. She sighs, looks down as though she isn’t constructing a mental edifice of a person who might (never) have been. “You’ll always have a place with me.”

Melanie doesn’t say anything. She just watches Georgie step around Martin and leave.

“I’m so sorry,” Martin says, the moment the door shuts. “She said she had Elias’s permission to talk to you, I didn’t—”

She kisses the inside of his elbow and steps out from under his arm, turning to look at him. “It’s alright,” she says. “This sort of conversation was inevitable.” She laughs. “I do sometimes want to hate you all, but I can’t. I just _can’t_.”

“I know,” Martin says. “Believe me, I know.”

Melanie has made her choices. She could, she thinks, walk away, just as a Lukas walks away and starves, or an ant leaves a nest and starves.

“Back to work,” Martin says, finally, and he stops breathing, meaning he’s not planning on talking again for a while.

Melanie nods. She likes her job more than she used to, even if Jon no longer really cares about follow up, even though it’s changed from researching the givers of dead statements to seeking out pressure points of fear.

Georgie glares at Jon, who is hurrying back to the Archives from Artifact Storage. Now that she knows what to look for, she notices the stiffness in his left shoulder and how the joints in his knees and ankles flex too much as he walks.

“Does it injure you, badly, then?” she asks, and Jon startles, mind elsewhere. “Becoming… whatever you are.”

“We call ourselves vampires,” Jon says, like he’s correcting her grammar. “It fits, more or less.” He rolls his shoulder after realizing she’s been staring at it. “It’s not a panacea. We all move more easily together.” He starts walking again, and Georgie reaches out to touch his shoulder. He freezes, and Georgie realizes she can only hear her own breathing.

“I don’t hate you,” Georgie says. Jon just looks at the far wall, away from her, another person to grieve as she stares at them.

“I’m sorry, Georgie,” he says, and walks away, leaving her to depart the Institute alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time (assuming I write it), Daisy gives a different perspective on the family.


End file.
